The overall problem this research addresses is the costly impact of counterproductive work behaviors. The purpose of this study was to examine whether uncertainty, stress, or frustration are related to variability, or in predicting counterproductive work behaviors. Wavering economic conditions have steadily altered work environments, and with continuous work changes are growing feelings of uncertainty, concerns of employee and organizational safety, performance, and overall wellbeing. The social exchange theory and the workplace social exchange network were used in this study to better understand employee relationships and response behaviors. Research questions compared the relationships among perceived uncertainty, stress, frustration, and levels of counterproductive work behaviors. For this study, a sample of 180 volunteers completed the Psychological Uncertainty Scale, the Perceived Stress Scale-10, the Frustration Scale, and the Counterproductive Work Behavior Checklist-10. Volunteers were recruited via invitation by Findparticipants.com. and SurveyMonkey-® hosted the data collection. This non-experimental, quantitative study employed a survey design, and multiple linear regression analysis were used to test the hypotheses. Regression analyses indicated a significant relationship between frustration and counterproductive work behaviors (t = 4.269, p < .001); however, the relationship of uncertainty and stress with counterproductive behaviors was not statistically significant. Predicting employee negative behaviors and gaining a better understanding of factors with negative influences on work behavior allows leadership the opportunity to develop more sustainable strategies designed to influence and encourage positive social change.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The goal of this study was to extend the concept of safety climate into the aggression research domain. In order to address this goal I developed and validated the perceived workplace civility climate scale (PWCC), which assesses the extent to which employees perceive the importance an organization places upon managing and preventing acts of incivility and verbally aggressive actions in the workplace. The factor analytic results produced three factors: (1) Intolerance, (2) Response, and (3) Policies and Procedures. All dimensions demonstrated adequate reliability and correlated significantly to hypothesized stressors and strains. Lastly, correlation results (i.e., convergence) between self- and peer reports provided support that PWCC is a form of climate within organizations. Regression analyses indicated that the PWCC dimensions of intolerance and response are important predictors of individual and organizational strains.

Antecedents of organizational citizenship behaviors and counterproductive work behaviors have been studied in depth, focusing on both individual differences and environmental variables. However, motivation has been largely overlooked as a contributor to these voluntary behaviors. Self-Determination Theory, a motivational framework, posits that environmental support in the form of fulfilled basic psychological needs leads to activities geared towards growth and development, whereas a lack of environmental supports thwarts these attempts towards self-growth. It is hypothesized that environmental support will account for unique variance above and beyond previously studied antecedents of voluntary workplace behaviors. This was supported using hierarchical regression. It was also hypothesized that locus of control will moderate the effect of environmental support on voluntary behaviors, such that environmental support will play a larger role in people with an external locus of control, compared to those with an internal locus of control. This was not supported using moderated regression, but the trends suggest that future research in this area may be more successful. The implications for research and practice are discussed.

This purpose of this study was to examine the effect that employee gender might have on performance ratings. Specifically, it was thought that negative performance episodes, such as aggressive behavior, might have less of an effect on performance ratings for males compared to females because males have a stereotype of being more aggressive. Additional hypotheses examined how different types of negative performance affected perceptions that the employee was behaving according to their gender ideal, and whether people judged male and female aggressiveness differently. To this end, 134 undergraduate students participated in a 2 x 3 design experiment where they read about a hypothetical server in a restaurant who had committed various negative behaviors at work. The results were, for the most part, not significant. The exception was that there were some slight group differences in how well the employees in the various conditions fit their gender ideal.

Cyberloafing is the nonsanctioned recreational use of the computers/internet during work hours. Although research is increasing, the processes related to cyberloafing are not well understood. In the current studies, I developed, tested, and evaluated a series of causal minor-cyberloafing models. In Study 1, I empirically compared four minor-cyberloafing taxonomies and selected two of these models as my working taxonomies for minor cyberloafing. In Study 2, I tested and evaluated eight causal minor-cyberloafing models using structural equation modeling techniques and various model-data fit indices. Results of Study 2 indicated that the models were not plausible, bringing into question the value of the proposed models. Despite the poor primary results, I did find a number of potentially important results in the subsequent exploratory analyses. First, I observed high correlations between minor cyberloafing and four of my exploratory variables. Second, I found that one’s perception of the descriptive cyberloafing norms predicted minor cyberloafing above and beyond one’s perception of the injunctive cyberloafing norms. Finally, I found that the predictors cyberloafing attitudes and perceived descriptive norms accounted for a substantial amount of variance in minor cyberloafing. I discuss the theoretical implications of the exploratory results and future directions for research in the discussion section.

Abstract The current study investigated the relationship between demands for organizational citizenship behaviors and future displays of organizational citizenship and counterproductive work behaviors. Such demands are conceptualized as workplace conditions that make it difficult for employees to complete their job (i.e., organizational constraints), performance failures of coworkers such as incomplete or incorrectly done tasks (i.e., coworker failure) and direct or indirect request from the supervisors to commit more organizational citizenship behaviors (i.e., supervisor pressure). Additionally, the effect of negative affectivity, hostile attribution bias, attributions of blame, and target specific scales of workplace behaviors were investigated. The design of the current study is prospective with a one week time lag between two self-report surveys. 464 employed U.S. residents were recruited through Amazon's M-Turk service. Of the initial 464 participants, 183 also completed the second survey a week later. New scales were created to assess coworker failure, supervisor pressure, attributions of blame, and target specific behaviors. The evidence from this study suggests that coworker failure and supervisor pressure are both antecedents to future displays of organizational citizenship behaviors and counterproductive work behaviors. Similarly, organizational citizenship behaviors preceded demands for organizational citizenship behaviors reported a week later. The results differed slightly when using target-specific scales of behavior. The hypotheses regarding individual differences and attributions of blame were not supported.

The present study has two primary contributions to the existing literature linking stressors to employee reactions. First, job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion are proposed to mediate the relationship between stressors and both forms of voluntary workplace behaviors, specifically OCB and CWB. A comprehensive framework, which includes both streams of voluntary workplace behaviors (OCB and CWB) will expand the common practice of investigating them separately and helps us better understand the parallel mechanisms linked to OCB and CWB. Secondly, the role of proactive personality will be investigated to gain insights into how it relates to job attitudes and voluntary work behaviors. We will have new look at the dispositional antecedents of OCB and CWB by investigating how proactive people react, feel, and behave in the organizational context.